Chris Phillips

I received my "Hook Norton Manor" from Rails this past week, and what a stunning model it is - and it runs like a dream. Well done Dapol. I was going to buy one of the post-war GWR liveried versions, but I do not like the offset insignia treatment on the tender. Apparently Dapol has made public some photos of prototype locos with this feature, but to me it just looks odd and will not buy one. The BR liveried locos seem to all have the BR crest directly above the centre axlebox, which is how I like them. In all my scores of GWR loco books, containing many hundreds of photographs, I have never seen a picture of the offset insignia. Anyway, I am so pleased with "Hook Norton Manor", I think I'll buy the lined green, early BR crest one too !

I've just been looking at pictures of the expected-soon GWR 'Manor' Class model from Dapol, and I cannot understand how a major manufacturer like this could allow mis-aligned markings on the tender to pass quality control. Some examples seem to be OK, the BR ones for example, have the early or late crests directly above the centre axle, where they should be, but the versions in post-war GWR livery, the ones with GWR on the tender, and the ones featuring G (crest) W, have the W or the crest totally out of line of the axle box. I noticed this on their 43XX model which came out last year, and it stopped me from buying one, because it is obviously wrong - it even looks weird and out of line, and totally unlike any locos in these liveries in prototype photos I have found. Come on Dapol, you can do better than this !

Wow - what a great find. I'm never that lucky unfortunately ! Incidentally, OFFTHERAILS was quite right concerning terminology. What is missing on your 'Earl' are the COUPLING rods, which 'couple' the sets of driving wheels together. CON rods, or CONNECTING rods connect the piston rod inside the cylinder to the main driven axle. On an inside cylinder loco, such as the 'Earl', these are between the frames, and connect to huge cranks on the main driven axle itself. Whereas on outside cylinder locos, such as a 'Manor', 'Castle' or the like, the connecting rod attaches to a pin on the crank on the outside of the main driven wheels - the coupling rods then transmit the drive to the other driving wheels.

Is Robbie's Rolling Stock still trading ? I can't get the web site to work, and all attempts at emailing them result in a 'failed message' reply from cyberspace.

Hi Tony, Photos of your control panel, and more to the point, the wiring underneath, is enough to give me nightmares ! Good luck my friend. See you at Warley.